[MIJB#19]

General Manager Notes: Pre-season 2120 has begun

Our 2120 roster is taking shape. Pre-season giveth and taketh, but we went through this unpredictable phase pretty quietly. Let's take a swift look at what did our staff sees in our players. First numbers are the overall rounded up/down to nearest 5s, at the end are the pre-season changes.

Quarterbacks
65/65 QB Renaldo Wilson -1/-1 trade acquisition
25/45 QB Al Schneider +1/+5 rookie
10/35 QB Damon Franz +1/-1 free agent signing
05/05 Tyrone D'Arms -10/-10 free agent signing
Wilson is our starter, Schneider the back up enough upside to be our future starter or solid backup. D'Arms will mentor Schneider. Franz will be out, we'll go with Schneider as our kick holder for 2120.

Backfield
55/55 RB Jackson Powell -1/-1
50/50 FB Rich Hartman +1/0
30/35 RB Diego Kosters 0/0 rookie
30/35 RB Corey Ward -1/-1 rookie
30/30 RB Renaldo Billodeaux -4/-4
10/10 FB Kenneth Holse -6/-6
The verdict is not out yet, I'm going to throw Kosters ands Ward out there in the last two pre-season games to fight it out for the last roster spot. Holse is still going to stick around as our elite special teamer.

Tight Ends
65/65 TE Francisco Anderson -1/-1
35/45 TE Kyle Baker +2/+3
30/30 TE Arnie Huffman 0/0
20/35 TE Jackson Henselman 0/0 rookie
Same trio as last season, basically, with Henselman the inactive, yet unavoidable due to injuries 4th guy.

Wide Receivers
60/60 WR Rodolfo Lane 0/0
60/60 WR Rufus Montgomery 0/0
55/60 WR Roman Randle +1/0
25/40 WR Tyrone Dillon 0/0 rookie
25/25 WR Antonio Price -5/-5
20/20 WR Blake Begay 0/0
15/20 WR Maurice Hadnot 0/-2 rookie
10/10 WR Maurice Sweeney -10/-10
A very good trio, each with his own skill set. Price will lose the battle of the WR4 role to Dillon. Begay will stick around as our special teams alternate, making Hadnot the other casualty. Sweeney remains as our kickoff return specialist, while Lane will continue to be the punt return elite.

Offensive Line
75/75 G Greg Brizzolara
75/75 LT Dan Clancy
45/60 G James Tucker +1/-1
50/50 LT Roy Wilkerson -6/-6 free agent signing
40/55 RT Perry Georgopulos +1/+1
45/45 G Alfred Pearsall 0/0
40/45 C Tracy Stewart -1/0
25/50 C Chester Coffey 0/-2 rookie
30/45 C Clyde Van Lanen +1/+3 free agent signing
3 spots are filled with Clancy, Brizzolara and Tucker. Wilkerson will be our right tackle until Georgopulos is ready to return and if he's then capable of playing up to the level he had. Pearsall is the alternative for Stewart to boost cohesion and the overall talent level. Coffey or Van Lanen will be released once Georgopulos is ready to return.

Defensive Line
45/80 DT Floyd Dillon -1/-2 rookie
55/55 DT Neil Burton 0/0
55/55 DT Rodney Gagliardi -14/-14 free agent signing
40/55 DT Jeremiah Cortez +1/+5
40/50 DE Phil Wakefield 0/+1
45/45 DT Francisco Blades 0/0
35/50 DE Roger Graf 0/-5 rookie
40/40 DE Glen Kafka +1/+1
35/35 DT John Craig 0/0
25/30 DE Bradley Osborne -6/-7
A big blow to veteran free agent signing Gagliardi, but he remains as a very solid pass rusher, which means he'll be on our passing downs group. Wakefield, Kafka and Graf will be the pass rushers on the outside. Dillon is all downs capable, but we'll give him some time to grow into it. Burton and Cortez will be run stoppers, with Blades the alternative. Craig and Osborne won't make the final roster.

Linebackers
55/55 LB Sam Hastings +2/+1
50/50 LB Jorge Mayes -10/-10
45/45 LB Ezekiel O'Neal 0/0
35/40 LB Brendan Tatum +1/0
35/35 LB Scottie Rice -4/-4
30/30 LB Xavier Hoover -5/-5
This unit fell apart, with all our running downs specialist taking big hits. Hastings will take over as the main man, especially on passing downs, with Mayes demoted to being the side-kick. O'Neal will jump back in as if his injury never happened and will get my preference over Rice and Hoover. Hoover and O'Neal are also the special teamers of this group. Tatum sticks around as the inactive backup.

Secondary
60/75 CB Andre McAninch +3/-3 rookie
60/60 CB Zachary Blair +5/+5
45/45 S Cesar Welch -3/-3
45/45 CB Asher McElroy 0/0
34/45 S Kim Fox 0/+1
35/35 S Bart Parker -1/-1
35/35 CB Marquis Wolf 0/0
35/35 S Peter Hinsley +1/+1
15/35 S Max Junker -6/-19 rookie
20/25 CB Billy Cochrane +1/-5 rookie
20/20 CB Byron Sokol -3/-3
Junker felt like the steal of the draft for us, but he's looking quite less impressive now. We'll still keep him over Parker, purely because Junker will be an improvement to the interceptions making group this is. Blair made a nice boost back up, he'll be our CB1 for another season, showing better man-to-man ability than McAninch. Sokol will stick around as the inactive backup, in case one of the other corners gets hurt. The rest of this group are all zone defenders.

Special Teams
85/85 K Jeffery DeGroot -1/-1
50/50 P Andre Marincic 0/0
20/20 LS Roderick Kaeding 0/0
DeGroot is the best kicker in the league, certainly in the kickoff department, but also showed us last season he's capable of nailing every field goal attempt. Kaeding is in the top four elite long snappers. Marincic will be our punter for another season. Unless we find a replacement more capable of the nailing opponents in their own 20.

Pre-season will continue with 1 more cut to be made and we'll start with the contract extensions for a bunch of players that are about to become free agents, most notably QB Wilson, K DeGroot and LS Keading. Far behind them we'll have to consider what to do with RB Billodeaux, TE Huffman, WR Begay, LB Hoover and CB Sokol. We'll likely have the cap space available for all, although the lion share of our $24M available will go to Wilson and DeGroot.


Oh yeah, we actually played two pre-season games. We beat Chesapeake 19-10 and lost 24-37 at Texas. Curiously, Chesapeake selected QB Darrin Tucker with the #8 overall pick, a player we decided not to pick at #5 overall and instead we decided to trade down to spot #10. Tucker is now scouted by our staff as being the 3rd most talented quarterback in the league at roughly 35/75. Texas played with WR Cameron Dewacht, scouted by us as a 45/70 kind of player, 8th best wide receiver in potential, ahead of our trio. Dewacht was taken at spot #23 overall and was our other option to pick at #16 where we traded in for DT Floyd Dillon. I was already considering Dewacht as an option at spot #5 and #10. Time will tell whether we made two big misses here, but right now, despite having acquired QB Wilson, CB McAninch and DT Floyd Dillon, as well as Harlem's 1st round pick in 2121, long term, having Tucker toting the ball to Dewacht, it could have been our best QB-WR combination ever, or on par with QB Rusty Harrison and WR Gabe Springer back in the early 2020's...